Sarah Keshaw from the NYT op-ed pages:
When Fighting Crime Means Enticing Crime Ms. Kershaw offers examples and a discussion of when law enforcement actually makes people commit moral offenses by enticing and luring them into it.
In the Larry Craig case, had the vice cop given lurking Larry the finger as he initially peered, or had he not tapped his foot in response, would that have been the end of it? Would Larry wait and solicit the next guy and the next? Regardless, the question is, did the vice cop contribute to the situation, when he could have defused it, showed his badge and sent Larry scurrying off to catch the rest of his life? Kershaw cites a quote from Craig during the tape made after his arrest. He said to the cop, "You're out to enforce the law, but you shouldn't be out to entrap people, either." The large larger issue is whether one believes that anything has been gained from all of this.
Again, I have to say that if Larry Craig had made a couple of calls (John Ashcroft? The Gov. of Idaho?) someone could have pulled the strings to get the Minneapolis DA and the police to probably put this one away. Better yet, if he had gone to the Red Carpet Club to use the bathroom there he would have been a lot better off. By any measure, the punishment from collateral damage does not fit the "crime."
